Month: February 2007

Economic PrincipalsPing Wang was in Rochester just a year ahead of me, and wowed the profession with his dissertation. Good for him for being in this powerful position now, and plaudits for Marcus Berliant. It’s not often you see nice people in high positions in this cut-throat business.And no, non-economist readers, I haven’t abandoned you. It just seems so… (But isn’t this article interesting on general grounds? For instance, I would argue that no economist is worth $500,000 a year; not even half as much. Economists are not humble enough about the power of our discipline to improve the human condition.)

Meetings make us dumber, study shows – LiveScience – MSNBC.comHow can I not post on this? Yes, the dangers of group-think are well-known. Yes, they were particularly evident in the 2003 Space Shuttle disaster (thanks to slashdot.org for both brining this link to my attention and for reminding me of that disaster). Yet, the business and academic worlds continue using meetings as ego-trips for managers (otherwise known as these people who were promoted to the level of their incompetence, with a few bright exceptions).

Just read in Infoworld about Gliffy. It looks fascinating, and all who want to make technical drawings of any kind should visit it. Further, if you want an entire online system with all sorts of applications, something like using remotely someone else’s open-source running computer, try EyeOS (and you can search for others, using “Web OS” as a keyword; another interesting one is DesktopTwo).

This is pretty amazing. There are CDs out there purportedly of a British pianist, deceased in 2006, that are really just copies of recordings other, famous pianists, playing a wide range of repertory. The pianist’s husband, still around and the one who produced and released these CDs says he has no idea how this happened. Really.

Life Among the Econ « Organizations and MarketsFound this via marginalrevolution.com. Thanks Tyler Cowen! The whole thing is sort of an inside joke for economists, sorry to my hordes (yeah, right) of non-economist readers. The economists amongst you, Gentle Readers. will love the PDF of Leijonhufvud’s article, so don’t miss clicking on it.

Building a Relationship Economy | Linux JournalThis is a very thought-provoking argument about the nature of markets. I have been thinking along similar lines for a while, and some of the economics profession has, too. The idea will prove useful when it becomes specified enough so we can draw a few testable predictions from it.

Wikia opens new “magazine rack” websites – Wikia CentralOnce again, a slashdot post I just could not pass up. It will be worth keeping an eye on these wikizines, for one thing to see if finally Wales will resort to ads to sustain the Wikia company (this in mind of the recent news that Wikipedia is in need of funds). I read one article and some of its discussion in the politics.wikia site (the article on why Jefferson had a copy of the Koran) and it was interesting; I also found the discussion less rude than I expected given the highly charged topic.